Category: Health

You hate the alarm clock, you often need several alarms to wake you up, and when you do, it’s hard for you to get out of bed and you’re moody. During the day you do not stop yawning, you feel exhausted, and you are sleepy at all hours. You feel identified?

Many people suffer from this excessive tiredness during the day, always accompanied by sleep, a desire to sleep, and constant fatigue. This feeling of tiredness is known as excessive daytime drowsiness, also known as hypersomnia. It is characterized by regular and involuntary episodes of sleep. In other words, the person suffering from hypersomnia has a great difficulty to stay awake and alert, leading to fatigue throughout the day together with a loss of concentration and a decrease in reflexes. These daytime sleep episodes develop more and more over a given period and tend to have their highest peaks in situations involving low stimulation (in lectures, reading, watching TV, or driving). However, fatigue and lack of concentration and attention also make it difficult to perform activities that require more physical or mental effort.

Hypersomnia levels

Mild hypersomnia:

The sensation of sleep occurs in monotonous or semi-rest situations: watching television, in lectures or conferences, etc.

Moderate hypersomnia:

Takes place when the person performs activities that require some degree of attention and involvement.

Severe hypersomnia:

Any daily situation is affected by episodes of intense and uncontrollable drowsiness.

Why do we feel so tired during the day?

In principle, sleep deprivation is the most frequent cause of excessive daytime sleepiness, which is very common in the case of students or workers with shift rotation or split schedule. Other factors that cause us fatigue during the day may be:

Excessive mental stress:

Working many hours, putting many goals or demanding too much without taking some time to rest and disconnect takes our toll. Without realizing it, stress causes our muscles to tighten, causing exhaustion and asking for rest over the hours.

Poor diet:

Having a poor diet, based on fatty foods makes over time, our body feels exhausted from the lack of minerals and vitamins. Drinking too little water is also important. This factor may be a warning of a possible anemia.

Emotional Factors:

Our emotions are reflected in our body. A bad experience or too many emotional problems that cause us pain make us feel “off” and just want to sleep.

However, there are times when sleeping the recommended hours does not guarantee a good rest. It is in these cases that daytime drowsiness or hypersomnia is related to other sleep disorders that are harder to perceive. Those who suffer from it have no problem sleeping, but sleep does not recover.